Morsi holds on to presidency in prison

Ousted Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi said yesterday that he continues to hold on to his position as president even behind bars.

Morsi’s statements came during a testimony he gave from his cell in Egypt’s Tora prison to the Port Said Criminal Court in the case of the Port Said prison clashes.

The former premier said that he objects to being questioned on the issue as the clashes took place more than three years ago, and demanded that his defence lawyers be present at the hearing. He also claimed that he remains the legitimate president of the country and that it is therefore not within the jurisdiction of the general prosecution to question him.

Judge Saad Eddin Sarhan convinced Morsi to give his testimony to the court as a witness and started directing questions at him. In his answers, Morsi said that the Port Said prison clashes happened as part of the repercussions for the Port Said stadium massacre.

He said that that there were two elements to the clashes. The first being that Port Said’s people felt that they were being treated unjustly by the authorities; and the second being the fact that the fans of the Ahly football club – known as the Ultras Ahlawy – lost 72 victims in the Port Said stadium massacre. Morsi noted that there was a major security crackdown on the area of Manzala Lake under former minister of interior Ahmed Gamal El-Din. The security campaign targeted suspects with a criminal record who are claimed to have exploited the protests of January 2013 to further their own ends.

According to Morsi, such criminals exploited the protests to destabilise the country. He explained that at the time he was able to keep a close eye on events from his office in the Qubbah Presidential Palace through three sources: The Ministry of Interior, the General Intelligence Directorate and the Ministry of Defence. He also watched media reports on the events at the time.

The ousted president dismissed the testimony of former Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim regarding his holding a meeting with the National Defence Council at Ittihadiya Palace on the day the verdict was issued by the court. He stressed that he was at Qubbah Palace, not Ittahadiah Palace, which discredits Ibrahim’s testimony.

At the end of the questioning, Morsi signed his testimony, saying that this was the first time he had signed a testimony in front of the general prosecution.